A/N: This absolutely requires an apology. I know it's been over a year. If anyone's still been awaiting an update (and I know there are at least two of you), I hope this will suffice. The last chapter left off with some dark hints about what Seamus had gone through during his last year at Hogwarts, and now Dean is going back without him. More updates will follow. I have no excuses other than a ridiculously busy year and a lack of motivation, but now there's time, and the motivation is slowly returning. Hope this somehow still has an audience...
The next step was always Diagon Alley, Dean thought as he reached for his list of the newest supplies. He glanced at it again, thinking, as he had been constantly, that he wished Seamus would go with him – and not just to Diagon Alley. Dean couldn't imagine being at Hogwarts without Seamus. (A small part of him knew that Seamus had done just that for the previous year when he'd gone to Hogwarts without him. But a bigger part of him knew that that Hogwarts wasn't the one they'd always known.)
But Seamus was nowhere to be found that morning, and Dean knew better than to knock on his door. When he thought of the one time he'd recently tried to broach the subject, he felt guilty. Shay had turned white, shaken his head, and practically run from the room. Dean knew he didn't understand all Seamus had been through during the previous year, but that was because Seamus wouldn't explain it – and that, in and of itself, was reason enough for him to know that things had been far worse than Dean could even imagine.
Mrs. Finnigan walked into the room as Dean was grasping a fistful of Floo powder, and she smiled, but Dean could see the lines of strain around her eyes and mouth.
"Have a good trip," she said quietly. "I wish one of us could go with you, but …" she trailed off, and he knew she really meant that she wished he'd been able to convince Seamus to accompany him. He found himself meeting her eyes, and he whispered, "I'm sorry," but she shook her head.
"It's not your fault," she said, her voice barely audible. "I'm just glad you're still here for the time being, at least. When you leave for school, you'll keep in touch with Shay as much as possible, right?"
Dean nodded vigorously, and the lines around her eyes eased a bit.
"Good," she whispered and then walked out of the room quickly, leaving Dean staring after her with a fistful of powder trickling from his fingers. He looked down in surprise, hardly remembering he'd taken the handful, then turning and flinging it into the fireplace, hopping in as he proclaimed, "Diagon Alley."
Dean wandered slowly down the street, looking around at the shops that were in various stages of rebuilding. He felt as though he were in a dream-like state as he purchased his supplies, and he was supremely grateful that he didn't run into anyone who felt compelled to stop him to have any sort of meaningful conversation. He wasn't up to having meaningful conversations at the moment. He wished he could just be finished with them altogether even though he knew such a wish was futile. He hadn't gone back to Hogwarts yet. The worst of these conversations were yet to begin.
But ten days later, when he found himself on platform 9 ¾, he knew the time was rapidly approaching because the first faces he saw when he pulled his trunk onto the train were Ginny, Luna and Hannah. Ginny's eyes lit up (as much as her eyes did these days), and he knew she was about to invite him into their compartment.
Without reason, without logic, without any sort of plan, he turned, pretending he didn't see her, and shoved his trunk into the first compartment he came to, ignoring the gaggle of first years who stared at him in shock. Ignoring them, he turned and rushed back off the train, knowing that he had to say goodbye to Seamus before he bolted once again.
He only just made it. Shay was shifting from foot to foot, his forehead glistening, his eyes darting frantically. Dean carefully touched his elbow, and Shay froze and then relaxed when he saw his friend standing beside him.
"You stowed your things?" he asked, trying as hard as he could to make his voice sound normal, but Dean could hear the undercurrent of a tremor, and he tightened his grip on Shay's elbow.
"I did," he said, and then he pulled Seamus around to face him. "I'm going to send you owls every week, you know. You might not be there in body, but I'll see to it that I keep you there with me in spirit. You'll write back, right?"
Seamus smiled slightly. "Of course I will. I still don't have a job. What else will I be doing?" he muttered, and Dean had to bite his tongue to ask why on earth Seamus was still so adamant about not returning to Hogwarts when his alternatives seemed so non-existent. But one look into his friend's eyes told him not to ask, and he pulled him into a rough hug instead, thumping Seamus on the back and muttering, "I'm going to miss you, mate."
Seamus hugged him back tightly, and he was shocked and horrified to find his voice too choked to respond, so he cleared his throat, hoping Dean would accept that as agreement. But Dean barely even looked at him once they let go, and he turned and leapt back onto the train, hoping Shay wouldn't see how quickly he, himself, was blinking.
He stumbled to his compartment and, once again ignoring the first years who were nervously exchanging their information with each other, leaned back and deliberately closed his eyes. This would be the first time he didn't watch the platform fade away behind them. He couldn't. Seeing Seamus disappear in the distance would hurt too much.
He'd actually been asleep for a chunk of time when his foot started to jiggle back and forth. He grunted and tried to twitch it awake, but it kept shaking. Finally, he opened his eyes – and then had to force himself not to scowl. It was Ginny, and from the looks of it, she wasn't planning on letting him sleep any longer.
"What is it?" he nearly growled ungraciously, but when her eyebrow lifted in surprise, he had the decency to feel slightly ashamed. He pushed himself up in his seat and muttered, "Sorry, Gin. It's just… it's already been a long day."
"Seamus?" she asked shrewdly, and he sighed and nodded slightly. It didn't surprise him that she'd cottoned on so fast, and it wouldn't do to pretend she hadn't. She knew him too well for that anyway.
"Nothing I said could convince him to come back," he said softly. He glanced toward the first years then, and one of them glanced at them at the same time, gulped when he saw the look on Dean's face, and then within moments, he and Ginny had the compartment to themselves.
Her lips twitched. "It's not so bad to get older sometimes, huh?" she asked in amusement, but Dean wasn't ready for levity, and he just sighed, leaning his head back against the seat.
"He had a bad year last year," Ginny said succinctly, and Dean nodded slightly but didn't open his eyes.
"I figured as much," he finally mumbled, "based on the hints he's dropped. But that's all they've been… hints. I can never get anything concrete from him, and now he's home, and I'm going back, and we're not going to see each other for months. And I don't know how I'm supposed to be at Hogwarts without him or Harry or Ron or Neville…" and he trailed off again, his throat closing. He was suddenly grateful that he wasn't looking at Ginny.
She put her hand on his leg again, but this time she didn't shake it or try to get his attention. Her grip was firm but understanding, and after a minute had passed, Dean let out a deep breath and opened his eyes. He tried to smile at Ginny, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"It'll be all right, won't it?" he asked, and she ignored the roughness in his voice as she nodded.
"It will be," she said quietly. "It'll be different, but it'll be all right."
Dean looked at her for a moment.
"That's exactly it," he murmured, and this time, his smile was slightly more sincere. "Different… It'll take some getting used to."
Ginny nodded. "I wonder if they had time to finish rebuilding over the summer holiday," she mused. "There was considerable damage …"
Dean's eyes widened. "I hadn't thought of that," he said slowly. An image of the Great Hall as he'd last seen it floated through his head, and he shook himself, trying to forget it. "How was the end of your summer?" he asked abruptly, changing the subject, and Ginny hitched one shoulder in reply.
"It was fine. Harry's been doing better. He's talking again, and he's working now. I think he might even be sleeping most nights, too."
Dean nodded his approval. "That's good," he said, relief evident in his voice. "At least somebody's doing better…"
Ginny studied him for a moment and then said hesitantly, "Has… has Shay ever told you about some of the punishments the Carrows administered?"
Dean's brow furrowed, and he shook his head slowly. "He clams up whenever anyone says the word Hogwarts. I told him more about my year than he's said about one day of his…"
Ginny looked as if she were struggling with a decision, but then she sighed.
"You should make sure you write to him," she concluded lamely. "Maybe – maybe it'll be easier for him to open up in writing."
But Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat even as he nodded reluctantly.
"It probably would be," he said, his voice so low that Ginny had to lean forward to hear him, "but I don't … it sounds awful, Gin, but part of me doesn't want to know."
She sighed. She couldn't blame him based on what she'd been able to piece together.
"I don't blame you," she admitted, but then she looked directly at him, "but he's too important for that to matter, right?"
Dean sighed. "Right," he said, knowing that he would be writing to Shay the moment he'd gotten himself settled in the dormitory that night. Ginny was right. It wasn't his comfort that mattered now… it was Seamus's obvious discomfort.
But Shay's discomfort was the furthest thing from Dean's mind when he walked in to the Great Hall for the Sorting that night because for the first time, he didn't see the tables set with the House colors (although they were) or the plates of food piled high on the tables (although they were, too). No, what he saw, in his mind's eye, were the bodies of the fallen lining the room, families crowded around them as they'd been when he'd last been here. He shook himself, and the image faded, but what replaced it didn't give him much comfort either as he slowly made his way to the Gryffindor table.
Ginny waved to him, and he saw that even as she tried to smile, her eyes were tired, and he knew he wasn't the only one noticing just how different it was this time. For the thousandth time, he wondered why he'd come back. This wasn't his Hogwarts anymore; how could he be expected to learn anything in this foreign place?
But he didn't voice any of these questions as he allowed himself to fall into the seat beside his friend. He tried for a smile, and Ginny's lips stretched in her best imitation of one as well. Neither of them spoke, simply watched the rest of the Hall as everyone settled themselves, but it was when McGonagall strode up to the lectern that Dean found himself suddenly dizzy. Dumbledore wasn't there. Of course he'd known for the past year that Dumbledore was dead, that he'd never be at Hogwarts again – but this was the first time he'd had to see that in action, and he found himself struggling to breathe evenly, focusing all of his attention on McGonagall's words.
"Ladies and gentlemen," their new headmistress was saying, "welcome. It is time for a new year, a new beginning. This has been a summer of new beginnings, and now your work begins again. You are here to prepare yourselves for a future that is far less uncertain than the one toward which you had previously been headed, and you must not squander this opportunity to take the knowledge you receive here and use it to make a difference in this world. If the events of last May teach us anything, it is that we can all make a difference. To borrow words from a very eloquent muggle, Mahatma Ghandi, we can all be the change we wish to see in this world. Now, it is the time to renew old acquaintances. I will leave you to your food."
She returned to her seat at the teachers' table, and Dean and Ginny looked at each other. Finally, she shrugged.
"Well, she's right," she muttered. "Obviously, we can change things. Look around… we already have."
Dean couldn't bring himself to do that – to look around – but he nodded. On a purely logical level, he knew she was right. But on another level – one that he distinctly did not want to discuss – he wondered how long it would take to really believe it.